


Frost Flowers

by Solemini (CyanHorne)



Series: Frost Flowers [2]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Angst, Community: rotg_kink, Family, Fluff and Angst, Implied Mpreg, M/M, Parents & Children, Sad, Single Parents, Tearjerker, Timeline Shenanigans, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:27:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 20,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanHorne/pseuds/Solemini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Frost died to bring new life into the world. Bunnymund tries to explain his sacrifice to their kits, but it's hard when the story hurts him so. And then Pitch Black gets involved...</p><p>(A continuation of First Frost at the request of the rotg_kink meme)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“You know Aster,” said Tooth, shifting restless on her cushioned perch. “You’re going to have to tell them soon.” 

The Easter Bunny said nothing. He sipped tea from a delicate china cup, not lifting his eyes from the large stone egg he was painting as her Christmas present. This latest portrait of the fairy queen was coming along quite well, in his opinion, and all the better with a sitting in her natural setting.

His ears twitched from their conversation to the aqua-colored pool a stone’s throw away, where his three kits – Jasmine, Coralberry, and Kaffir – played in the shallows alongside the small handful of fairies who could be spared for such games. In mid-December, the ever-seasonal warmth of Punjam Hy Loo was a treat, even if Kaffir would rather be at the Pole pranking North’s Christmas preparations. He expressed this desire by lighting chilling water cupped in his front paws before dumping it over the heads of his sisters, drawing giggles from Coralberry and shrieks of indignation from Jasmine. Their antics brought a wiry grin onto Bunny’s face.

“Aster.” Tooth’s voice was more firm this time, drawing both his ear and, momentarily, his eye. Her normally bright smile faded to a matronly line and her wings – which were supposed to remain still so he could get the color right – buzzed with hint of disapproval. “You need to tell them.”

Bunnymund sighed, dabbing a fresh brush into his paints. “I know, Tooth. I know.”

“They’re more than old enough now, they deserve the full story. Jack would want them to have it, you know he would. And Kaffir –”

“Shush.” Bunny froze, his ears swiveling back to the pond. Jasmine yelled at her brother, repeatedly kicking up waves with her hind legs that only served to send him laughing again as he bounded from rock to rock. There was no indication the children could hear. Still, he kept his voice low. “What about Kaff?”

Toothiana pursed her lips, drumming her fingers as her nerves swallowed up what willpower she’d devoted to staying still for the painting. She took a long moment to properly organize her thoughts before saying, “He’s different. From you, from the girls. Everyone can see it. And I know –” She held up a placating hand to cut off his next protest. “-- that you don’t treat him like he’s strange. But children can recognize this sort of thing, you don’t know how much it could be bothering him. At the very least, don’t you think he deserves to know why?”

Aster set his jaw. He swirled his brush around in the water jar and squeezed the excess liquid from the bristles with a bit of white cloth. “S’not like they haven’t asked, Tooth.”

“…And?”

Bunnymund sighed. “I tried, okay? I’ve tried a lot. More times than I care to count.”

He’d tried answering their questions as they came and bringing it up on his own. He’d tried to make it a bedtime story, a history lesson, a plain old man-to-man talk. He tried every angle he could think of. Nothing changed. Every time, the pain welled up and closed his throat, keeping the story locked inside.

Bunny set the egg down and settled back in his own cushioned seat, rubbing his temples with one paw. “It never gets any easier. You’d think, after thirty years, I’d be able to spit it out, but…it just won’t come. It still hurts too much.”

Tooth’s wings buzzed with nervous energy, lifting her off her perch. Aster could see in her worried eyes that she was thinking the same as him. It would be so much easier for her to tell the tale. She was the Guardian of Memories, after all, and she wasn’t limited to what remained in children’s teeth. She had tricks that could bring out her own memories and his and those of their fellow Guardians to show the kits their dam’s story. But she wouldn’t offer, and he wouldn’t ask, because…

“They deserve to hear it from you,” she said, gentle but firm.

Aster sighed again, “I know. And they will. After Christmas. That’s when I’ll tell them.”

“Tell us what, Daddy?”

Both Bunny and Tooth jumped in surprise. Jasmine had snuck up on them, her light steps silenced by the dense ground and her own sodden state. She dripped with water, silver fur soaked through and ears so heavy that she couldn’t lift them from her head. She stared up with her father’s wide green eyes, her whiskers drooping in a sad pout.

Aster cleared his throat and crouched to meet his daughter’s eye as Tooth refreshed their tea. “Nothing, Jazzy. Don’t worry about it. What’s wrong?”

Jasmine sniffed, pawing at her sodden ears. “Kaffie keeps splashing me. Make him stop.”

Bunnymund chuckled. He straightened and raised his voice, calling to the pool. “Kaf. Lay off your sisters, it’s not fun anymore.”

“Aw…” Kaffir hunched over the rock he’d just scaled and pouted, but relented with a shrug.  “Okay, Dad.”

The young buck shook his head, water droplets freezing as they left his fur, only to melt in mid-flight due to the surrounding warmth. He bounded between from one rock to the next, climbing higher on the mural and leaving curls of frost wherever his paws touched until he crashed into the center of the pool. The wave created by the cannonball swept a giggling Coralberry and three mini-fairies all the way to shore.

Bunnymund nudged Jasmine back towards the pool and watched her return to her siblings with a fond smile. At just short of thirty years, his kits were of a comparable maturity to ten-year-old humans. Already he half-anticipated, half-dreaded the inevitable sibling squabbles to come, which were made no easier by Kaffir’s lack of control with his ice and cold. He desperately needed focus, something to reign it under control. It would be so much easier if he had someone to teach him, but…

Well. He didn’t. Obviously.

Aster turned to find Tooth still staring at him pointedly, as though reading his mind. He sighed. “I’ll tell them. After New Year’s.”

“You said Christmas.”

Bunny frowned. “Their birthday,” he settled firmly. “In January. That’s when I’ll do it. I’ve got a plan, Tooth, I do. I just need to get something from North, something to…to break the ice.”

Toothiana sighed and shook her head. “If you say so, Bunny.” She buzzed around the table and leaned over his shoulder to press a quick kiss on his fuzzy cheek. “I should get back to work. You four stay as long as you like, okay?”

Bunny nodded and thanked her for the hospitality and the tea. As the Tooth Fairy returned to her job, his eyes wandered between the half-finished portrait and his children’s game, thinking of the similar eggs they’d never seen with Jack’s face and color in loving detail and wondering, yet again, how he could ever hope to do that beautiful life justice with a simple tale.

* * *

 

Christmas came and went, as did New Year’s in its turn. Before Bunny knew it, they’d arrived in the middle of the wintery month and stumbled onto the kits’ thirtieth birthday.

There would, of course, be parties and celebrations in the days to come. North would never pass up the chance to shower love and wonder on his self-proclaimed _vnuchata_ , even so close after lavishing gifts on them at Christmas. But the first day, the day they’d come into the world, was a time for family and quiet and personal gifts, hand-chosen for each of them by their father.

For Jasmine – who had the greenest though of anyone he’d ever known – Aster procured a rare and finicky sapling from Punjam Hy Loo that would reward the keen caretaker with blossoms of magical properties. For Coralberry, he brought her own set of paint-making tools and a lovingly hand-crafted copy of his recipe book for pigments and dyes.

And Kaffir…Kaffir got something truly special, something that had rested many years in the safe vaults of the North Pole, something that Bunny knew would help him more in the coming years than any other gift he’d ever received. But when the young buck first laid eyes on it, he wilted like a daisy in a cold snap.

“It’s a stick,” he mumbled, trying and falling to hide his disappointment.

Aster chuckled, rolling the antique wood in his hands before holding it out. “Not just any stick, buck. Give it a whirl.”

Kaffir eyed the crook uncertainly, scenting the air as though expecting a prank. He brushed the antique wood with two hesitant fingers. Frost crackled over its surface, glimmering blue and silver with power. Kaffir withdrew his paw with a gasp.

“That’s it,” Bunny urged, holding it out again. “Take it.”

Kaffir, his chest practically vibrating with shallow breaths, reached out again. He took the staff. Ice spread up its length, curling and grasping like living vines. Kaffir’s white fur, still so soft and young, stood on end all the way to the tips of his long ears.

He tapped the ground, prodded a nearby tree, and dragged the hook along the grass. Everywhere the wood touched, it spread ice like paint from the tip of a bush, coiling wild and unrestrained. Kaffir tried to run with it and tripped, unsure how to move so fat with his front paws full. He soon got the hang of it and sped across the field, laughing all the way.

Jasmine keened and hurried her new sapling away where it wouldn’t be hurt by frost. Coarlberry giggled and clapped her hands, shouting encouragements to her brother. Kaffir grinned at her and showed off with the largest leap he could muster, only for an unexpected wind to catch him mid-jump and catapult him, yelping, straight into the River of Color. The crook met the surface first and, in an instant, the liquid dye froze solid beneath his paws, forming a platform of ice that spread all the way to the nearest bank. Kaffir stared at his own handiwork in amazement. Then he began to bounce along the ice and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Bunny chuckled, raising to his full height to call across the field. “Don’t be doing that during the googies’ bath-time, you hear?”

As though he’d only just remembered his father was there, Kaffir doubled back. He crossed the field in two wind-carried leaps and threw himself at Aster, hugging him with all his strength. “Best. Gift. Ever! Dad, this is _amazing_. Where did you get it?”

This was it then. Bunny took a deep breath and hugged Kaffir tight before settling onto his haunches, pulling the younger buck with him into the grass. He squeezed the kit’s shoulders and sighed. “That stick, Kaf…That was your dam’s.”

Kaffir sobered immediately, nose twitching, eyes wide. Coralberry’s interest piqued as well, her blue eyes widening as she rose onto her haunches, clutching her new recipe book close to her chest. “Mommy?”

A tiny smile tugged at Aster’s lips. Jack would’ve protested that name like there was no tomorrow. Call him Papa, call him Pop, call him Da, Daddy, Dam, anything but…

“Yeah. Mommy.” He sighed again, trying to get his thoughts in order and calm his pounding heart. “After all that’s happened…I think he’d want you to have it.”

“After all what that’s happened?” Jasmine returned from securing her tree and hopped to join her siblings, ears eagerly popped in anticipation of a long-awaited story. “That’s what you were planning to tell us, isn’t it? About Dammy? Oh, please Daddy, please tell us. I wanna know where Dammy is.”

Bunny suppressed a shudder. These days, ‘Dammy’ lay deep beneath the South Pole where the ice would never melt, his grave unmarked and undisturbed, with memorials to his life scattered among his family and friends. What an awful place to begin a story of life. He needed to get his head on straight. He closed his eyes.

That proved a mistake, because the darkness there caught his imagination and instantly reformed into Jack, thawed and lifeless, his face serene even in death. And oh, it hurt, like having his heart dragged from his chest by blunt Fearling claws.

He didn’t even realize that he’d lost himself in bad memories until Coralberry’s worried voice brought him back to reality, repeatedly calling, “Daddy? Daddy…” while tugging at his bandolier. He lifted his head to find two sets of blue and one set of green eyes staring up at him, their anticipation replaced by concern and fear.

Aster let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. It came out a dry sob. He choked it back,

“Later,” he said, though his throat threatened to close on him. “Today. I promise. Just…later.” He cleared his throat and patted Coral’s head before nudging her towards the other two and the open field beyond. “Go play. I’ll be right here.”

Three sets of long ears drooped in disappointment. Jasmine gave a pleading whine but padded away when it became clear that they’d been dismissed. Coralberry nuzzled her father before joining the other doe with her paint kit, leaving only Kaffir. The white buck stared up at Aster with those wide blue eyes and clutched the staff close, sending Bunny’s mind back to a long-ago ruined Easter and the first time he’d inadvertently broken the heart of the spirit who would become his mate.

Heart still aching, Bunny couldn’t bear to look at his own son. He patted the kit’s shoulder and whispered, “Soon, buck. Soon. Go join your sisters,” before hopping past him without looking back and losing himself in the herding of eggs while he tried to get his broken heart under control. 


	2. Chapter 2

_Thirty-one years previous_

_Late May_

 

Five days after the news of his pregnancy broke, Jack Frost met a stranger. Only he – she? It? – wasn’t truly strange, once he got a second look. In fact, Jack probably knew her – it. _Them_. – as well or better than any other creature alive.

They appeared to him in the Alaskan mountains, where snow and ice continued to linger even as spring took hold of the lower lands. He spotted them while flying overhead and knew, without knowing, that they waited for him.

The wind set him down among the frosted boulders and lingered there, reluctant to leave his side. They turned, imperceptibly, to face him. In doing so, they made no noise. “HELLO, JACK FROST.”

“Hi there,” said Jack. He smiled, because it was in his center to smile especially while nervous or uncertain or afraid. Tonight was the first in a week that he’d intended to spend along, away from the fuss and excitement of his mate and fellow Guardians. To be approached by such a force did not bode well at the best of times.

His skin prickling with anxious nerves, Jack leaned his whole weight on his staff, balancing precariously on the curved face of a weather-worn stone. “Well then. To what do I owe the honor?”

His companion rose from their seat on another rock, unfolding like a deck chair on the shores of the sea of night. They inclined their head to him in a way that was almost polite. “I COME WITH A MESSAGE,” they said. “FROM THE MAN IN THE MOON.”

“Manny?”

As though answering a cue, the clouds parted, giving way to a gibbous moon that shown down from a dark and starry sky. Jack frowned up at it in confusion, then turned the expression to his companion. “Since when do you play messenger?”

“I DON’T.”

Jack stepped off the rock, scuffing the dirt with the butt of his staff. The message must be important, to enlist the help of such a force of nature. But still… “Why not go through the Guardian channels? I’ve been at the Pole all week. It would’ve been easy.”

“THE INFORMATION IS, AT THIS TIME, INTENDED FOR YOU ALONE IT PERTAINS TO YOUR RECENT…DEVELOPMENT.”

Dark eyes like distant stars peered at Jack’s stomach. Jack, his instincts screaming danger, leapt back, brandishing his staff with one hand as the other pressed over the slightest lump hidden by his hood.

“CALM YOURSELF. I AM NOT HERE FOR THEM.”

_Yet_ , whispered an unspoken voice at the back of Jack’s mind. His grip on the staff tensed as the wind picked up its roar. He would have answered its call to fly, but knew it would do no good. They were everywhere. They always were. Always would be.

“Why are you here, then?” he demanded. “You said you had a message. Let’s hear it.”

The stillness of his towering companion continued to unnerve, no matter how familiar they seemed. Even their jaw did not move as they spoke. “DO YOU KNOW HOW YOU CAME TO BE?”

Jack snorted. “Well, when my mommy and daddy loved each other very much…”

“NOT THAT. YOUR CURRENT EXISTENCE.”

“It was a joke.”

They stared at him. Jack rolled his eyes. There were some creatures in this world who never quite found their sense of humor. “Yes. I know I got here. Manny brought me back to life.”

His companion snorted. How they managed that without a proper nose, Jack would never know. “TOO SIMPLE. BUT CLOSE ENOUGH. YES, TSAR LUNAR TOOK IT UPON HIMSELF TO RAISE YOUR SPIRIT FROM ITS ICY REST AND FILL YOUR CORPSE WITH THE MAGIC OF LIFE – AFTER HE HAD OBTAINED MY PERMISSION, OF COURSE.”

“Of course. So what?”

“SO,” said his companion, without a hint of emotion or strain. “THE TSAR LUNAR IS MANY THINGS. BUT HE IS NOT A GOD. BY ITS NATURE, EVEN HIS MAGIC HAS ITS LIMITS. IT CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH.”

“THE MAGIC OF LIFE WITH WHICH HE INFUSED YOUR BODY CONTINUES TO BURN TO THIS DAY. IT IS WHAT HAS KEPT YOU ALIVE THESE FOUR HUNDRED YEARS. IT SHOULD HAVE CONTINUED TO DO SO FOR MILLENNIA MORE. HOWEVER…” Again, the dark eyes settled on Jack’s stomach and the splayed, protective hand. “THE GOOD TSAR DID NOT ACCOUNT FOR THIS.”

Jack’s throat tightened. Of course Manny couldn’t expect this. He hadn’t expected it. Hell, _Bunny_ hadn’t expected it, and the whole thing was his fault. It’d been an accident. A miracle. But had something gone wrong…?

The other stared at him, as though waiting for his thoughts to silence themselves before they spoke again. Their voice this time was soothing, but not quite gentle, like rocking waves beneath a ship in the center of a vast sea with no moon and no lights, only stars and endless darkness.

“THE CREATION OF NEW LIFE IS A MAGIC OF ITS OWN. BUT IT IS NOT SELF-SUSTAINING. IT MUST BE FED.” They paused, allowing the words to sink in before delivering the final blow. “THE MAGIC OF LIFE WITHIN YOU CAN ONLY SUPPORT SO MUCH. IT WOULD BE STRAINED TO ITS LIMITS IN CREATING EVEN A SINGLE ADDITIONAL LIFE, LET ALONE THREE.”

Three…?

_Three!_

Jack’s heart leapt. A litter. An entire litter. Three precious, beautiful babies all his own, a perfect mix of him and Aster. Which would they resemble more, he wondered. Would they be boys, girls, a mix of both?

“JACK FROST. LISTEN.” The other’s face bore no expression. Jack suppose that it probably couldn’t, given what it was. “BRINGING THIS EVENT TO TERM WOULD REQUIRE EVERY DROP OF LIFE MAGIC POSSESSED BY YOUR BODY. IT CANNOT BE SUBSTITUTED. IT CANNOT BE RESTORED. ALL OF YOUR POTENTIAL THOUSANDS OF YEARS WOULD BE THE COST FOR BRINGING THOSE THREE INTO THE WORLD.”

Jack swallowed. It hurt, forcing the tension down. It took another before he could again speak. “You’re saying that I’d die. For good this time.”

The other nodded, once.

Jack’s heart came down from its previous leap and sank into his stomach like lead into the sea. He lowered his staff and rested both his hands across his stomach, staring at the place where they clasped. Beneath the hands, beneath his skin, three tiny creatures waited in anticipation of a world they had never seen.

They were so tiny now. From everything they’d been able to estimate, he was perhaps a month along. They were barely creatures. Barely lives.

A pale hand emerged from robes of liquid night, a single finger extended towards him, pointed at the tiny lump he had concealed. “THIS IS WHY TSAR LUNAR ASKED ME TO BRING THE MESSAGE,” said the comforting dark voice as its owner took a single step closer. “ASK, AND IT WILL END.”

So that was what it came down to, in the end. His life, or theirs.

The other took another step. Jack again retreated, leaping back onto the nearest rock with his staff pulled defensively across his path. “No,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m keeping them. All of them. All the way.”

The other stopped. They lowered their hand and turned their face to the moon, whose light wavered with reservation. “I DID TELL YOU HE WOULD SAY THAT.”

“Yeah. Well. Don’t tell anyone else. Please. Not a soul. And that goes for you too.” Jack straightened on his rocky perch, turned to the Man in the Moon, and shook his staff for emphasis. “You hear me? Not a single word. Don’t you dare try to get the others to talk me out of this. You owe me.”

The moonlight shimmered with a hint of distress. Jack could just imagine Manny, as he’d seen him once or twice through ancient machines, wringing his hands and fretting over what was the right thing to do. Jack knew the Man in the Moon well enough now to know that he would only offer this option if he thought it was truly for the best. The prospect of losing a Guardian, the oldest and dearest of his friends, was the closest thing the MiM knew to a nightmare.

The black and pale figure had yet to move. It looked to Jack impassively and said, “YOU ARE CERTAIN.”

It was not a question. Merely a formality. Jack took a deep breath.

“Yeah. I am. Just.” He sighed. “Can I ask a favor?”

The other moved their head ever so slightly to the left.

“When the time comes…I want to see them. Just once. If I can stay just long enough for that…I just the need the one time. Please.”

They nodded, slowly, like waves lapping upon the shore. “THAT IS ACCEPTABLE.” The pale hand extended again, this time offering a flat, boney shake. “WE HAVE AN AGREEMENT, THEN.”

Jack eyed the hand suspiciously before concluding that it was not a trick. They shook. The other stepped back and inclined their head once more to bid him well. “SEE YOU SOON.”

And with that, he was alone.

For a long white after, Jack stayed rooted to the spot. He gripped his staff with both hands and stared down at his own bare feet. His new reality set in, heavy and slow, echoed by a steady snowfall that soon buried him up to his toes. The wind responded to his sorrow, wrapping around him in a comforting hold. The moon watched over him in concern until the hint was finally taken and it retreated back behind the clouds.

It was only when he was truly alone that Jack began to cry.

He sank down to his knees and mourned with heavy, gasping sobs. He cried long and hard, knowing that though he may have the single time to see their faces, he would never live to hear his children laugh or sing or say his name. He would never get to see them grow or teach them to play. He would never knew their favorite colors or favorite foods or favorite games.

And when he’d exhausted all the tears he had for the children he would never know, he cried again for the loved ones he would leave behind. His family and comrades of a hundred years, who’d already lost so much in their long lives, who he couldn’t even warn because they would try to stop him and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. He cried in turn for North and Tooth and Sandy and, finally, for his lover, knowing that Aster would be in terrible pain. He cried and begged forgiveness from the wind, who could not give such things, but tried to offer comfort in its place.

He cried and sobbed and mourned and shouted until he’d finally exhausted everything he had. It left his body empty and tingling, painfully weak from all the sudden release. He needed rest, a good night’s sleep, but he wouldn’t get it here. Besides, the others would start to worry for him soon.

He gathered handfuls of fresh snow from the ground and rubbed it over his face until all the remnants of his tears were washed away. When his face was clean and breathing had calmed and his usual smile returned to his face, he again rested his hand over his stomach and called for the wind to take him home.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered to the three once more before they took to flight. “Don’t you worry. I promise, everything is going to be okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies if this is a bit confusing. To make a long story short, I had two ideas of continuations from the original piece, a sequel and a prequel, neither of which I liked completely on their own. So I decided to split the difference and essentially write them both, alternating between the past and the present with each chapter. This would probably be more effective if my chapter endings didn't suck, but there you go.
> 
> We'll be back with Bunny and the kits next time, you'll see...


	3. Chapter 3

The painted boomerang spun in a graceful arch, its greens, blues, and purples blurring together in flight. It curved precisely along the Warren wall and drew just near enough to clip a bough of violet blossoms from the stone before it was knocked off-course. 

Jasmine caught the flowers in her woven basket in her weapon in the opposite paw, bouncing off the stone and returning to solid ground without ruffling a single blossom. Painfully pleased with herself, she sauntered back to the old jamcanda tree and presented the flowers to her sister, who sat just beyond the shade. "These the ones you wanted, Cor?"

Coralberry squealed, happily accepting the plant and cross-checking it with the illustrations in her recipe book. "Yes! This is perfect, just what I need. Thank you!" 

"My pleasure." Jasmine shined her claws on her fur with a self-satisfied hm. "You know you can always count on your  _big sister_  to help you out."

Kaffir, crouched over the jamcanda's roots, rolled his eyes. Ever since her markings grew in two years before, Jaz had been unbearable. She claimed that the blue-and-white fern patterns marked her as the 'oldest' and the 'most mature,' but they didn't actually mean anything. She just wanted an excuse to boss them around. 

Kaffir shifted his restless limbs, only remembering the staff he held when it paws slid over the aged wood. It felt so natural in his grip that he'd nearly forgotten. Stupid fur markings meant nothing compared to this. This, this was their dam's staff, and it hadn't just been given to Kaffir, it responded to him, calling to the ice inside like it'd been made just for him and he for it. And if he closed hi eyes he could almost imagine a familiar voice...

"Kaffir!" Jasmine shrieked. "What are you doing?! Stop it!"

He snapped open his eyes. A thick layer of ice spread around him in all directions, covering the jamcanda's trunk with frost-tendrils and the grass with frozen coats. The new chill in the air felt wonderful to him, but Coralberry had drawn away with an uncomfortable whimper while Jasmine angrily pounded her hind leg. 

"You're making the ground too hard to plant and you're gonna kill Jamie, so stop it! I'll tell Dad!"

'Jamie' was her name for the jamcanda. Kaffir scowled at the implication that he'd kill a full-grown tree three times their age. He shook the frost out of his fur and kicked the trunk, knocking off ice that quickly melted as the Warren's natural heat returned. "I'm not killing it, I'm just watering."

"You were not," said Jas angrily. "You lost control again. I thought  _that_  -" she jabbed a paw at the staff. "- was supposed to make it so you didn't do that anymore."

Kaffir pulled the staff close defensively. "It will. It is. I'm just getting used to it, that's all."

"As if. You're just too much of a screw-up to use it right."

Kaffir bristled, but before he could tackle his obnoxious sister and make her take it back, Coalberry spoke up. "I wish Dammy were here."

Her siblings' fight ground to a stop. They stared at her. Coralberry shrugged. "He'd show you how to keep it under control. And I bet he’d teach you all sorts of neat tricks to do with it, too.”

Jasmine and Kaffir fell quiet, their ears drooping in turn. Kaf didn’t always see eye-to-eye with his sisters, but on this subject the three were united.

They weren’t stupid. Though they’d never been told outright, they knew their dam – mommy, paper, other parent – was dead. If he wasn’t, he would have been with them and Daddy wouldn’t have been so sad the first time Kaffir made it snow. And even though they’d never met him, they never doubted that Dammy loved them just as much as Daddy did. But that didn’t stop it all from hurting, and it didn’t stop them from wanting to know.

Coralberry swept her front paws under her ears, trying to make them stand up, but they were still too long and heavy. They flopped back in her face. She pouted from between them and gave a soft sigh. “Do you think Daddy’s really gonna tell the story today?”

“He said that he would,” said Jasmine, with firm resolution.

“Yeah, but he always says that.”

“Well, this time he means it. It’s a birthday promise and you know how serious he is about – Kaffir, don’t you lay a paw on those bulbs!”

Kaffir’s hand stopped above Kasmine’s basket, a few inches shy of the dozen paper-wrapped flower bulbs that covered the bottom. He scowled. “I was just –”

“‘Just’ nothing. Those aren’t tulips, they don’t need your help.”

Kaffir’s scowl deepened. All bulbs looked the same to him, how was he supposed to guess the difference between the ones that needed a good chill and the ones that didn’t? Even when he tried to be helpful it wasn’t enough for little miss bossy-butt.

Perhaps that was why he ran with the wicked idea when it came. Better to have Jaz angry and Coral laughing than both of them depressed, after all. He withdrew his hand, at first seeming to respond to Jasmine’s order. Then he reached for the basket again, slower and more deliberately, making sure he sister could see.

“Kaffir no,” she snapped immediately.

He inched a little closer.

“I’m warning you.”

Almost there…

“Don’t you touch them!”

“Fine,” said Kaffir. “I won’t.”

He snatched the basket by the handle and took off on a two-legged run. Jasmine broke from Coral’s side and gave chase, dropping to all fours right away. “You give those back!”

“Gotta catch me first!” Kaffir shook the basket tauntingly before tossing it up, grasping the handle between his teeth as he dropped to all fours and grasped Dam’s staff with both hands.

With the wind carrying his every jump, Jasmine only managed to catch up again once Kaffir ducked into one of the hundreds of tunnels that branched from the Warren. Since it wasn’t Easter, the passages all doubled-back into a twisting maze that eventually returned to the Warren, so Kaffir felt securing in rebounding off walls and taking corners with reckless abandon, even after he lost track of exactly where they were. Though muffled by the basket in his teeth, his laughter echoed through the tunnels, followed closely by Jasmine’s threats to tell their father of his mischief.

Finally, she closed the gap enough to pounce him from behind, dragging him to the ground with her arms wrapped tight around his waist. Before she could even complete her victory cheer it turned into a yelp as ice sprayed from the staff, coating the tunnel with ice right down to the rocks beneath their feet. Coralberry – who’d abandoned her flowers and paint kit to make sure her siblings didn’t hurt each other – couldn’t stop before she hit them. The combined momentum sent all three kits careening over a sharp downhill slide at top speed, which only got faster as the ice spurred them on.

Jasmine screamed, now clinging to her brother for dear life. Kaffir laughed out loud, dropping the basket into his lap and throwing back his head with a whoop. It was just like riding North’s sleigh at the Pole! Only it last much too short and they didn’t fly at the end, they only hit solid earth and were sent tumbling over each other in a pile of limbs and fur.

Kaffir found himself on the bottom of the sibling pile, still laughing though the weight of his sisters made it tricky. Coralberry rolled off the top and bounced excitedly in place, tossing her ears back out of her eyes. “Again! Let’s do it again!”

“No!” Jasmine shoved away next, shaking and keening in distress. “Nuh-uh, no way, I am never, ever, ever – aaah, _Kaffir!_ My basket! My bulbs!”

The basket had been smushed on impact, its egg-shape now resembling a slightly wilted watermelon. Chuckling sheepishly, Kaffir offered it to Jasmine so she could re-collect its oh-so-precious cargo of bulbs, which lay scattered in the dirt around them.

While she hopped ever-more-furious circles to collect them all, Kaffir turned his eyes to their surroundings. They’d landed in a turn-around, a wider, circular bulge in the tunnel meant to enable just what the name implied. This one had been formed at the intersection between three tunnels, two level and one forming a sharp angle – that would be their entrance. None of it looked familiar. Kaffir squinted down the other two, trying to figure out where they led, but they were too dark. Normally, bioluminescent flowers lined the roof of the tunnels to guide their way, but here only a single tulip-shaped blossom grew. The rest was only mud, rocks, packed earth, and moss.

Coralberry sniffed the air, drawing close to her brother out of instinct to keep together. “Where are we?”

“Dunno,” said Kaffir, wishing he’d thought to hang a light from Dam’s staff as he turned a slow circle in the center of the nook. “Must be one of the older tunnels, the ones Dad doesn’t use anymore.”

Jasmine, having triple-checked her basket to make sure she’d gotten every last one of her bulbs, stopped her hopping and straightened to her hind legs only. “We shouldn’t be here. Daddy wouldn’t like it, he’ll worry if he can’t find us.”

She drew herself up to her full height, standing taller than either of her siblings in an attempt to take command. She took a deep breath of the air from one tunnel, then the other, and pointed to the second. “I smell grass this way. It’ll be the fastest way back. C’mon.”

Coralberry nodded and hopped to join her. Kaffir, swallowing his pride to admit that Jaz was right for once, moved to follow, but something stopped him. An odd feeling. A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold. It ran from his scalp up the length of one ear, almost like phantom fingers.

He turned around, but there was nothing there; only the rounded wall of black earth. Kaffir scented the air, wondering if he’d imagined the touch. But no – he was sure. There, along the dirt. Something moved.

“Hang on,” he said, stepping towards it. “There’s something here.”

Jasmine whined again, but Kaffir ignored her, leaning close to examine the wall. He thought that…yes, there. A crack, long and jagged, ran for good three or four feet along the wall. How strange. The earth here, this thick clay, shouldn’t have been solid enough for something like that. And if he leaned a little closer, he thought he saw something liquid dripping from its edge, black and iridescent at the same time. Had Dad accidentally struck oil?

“Kaffie,” said Coral, backing closer to Jasmine and grasping the larger sister’s arm. “I don’t like here. It’s go.”

“We will,” said Kaffir. “Just…give me a sec.”

Licking his muzzle, he lifted Dammy’s staff and carefully negotiated it so that the very tip of the hook hovered just above the odd crack. He hesitated only a moment, then prodded the strange phenomenon with the aged wood.

An iridescent, black liquid something oozed from the earth. It dripped over wood and clay, slow as sap drawn fresh from the tree. Kaffir pulled the staff away, but before it’d gone more than inch, the black became a hand. It snagged the crook in an iron grip and refused to let go.

The shadows took that as their cue to attack.

 

 

_“DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”_

E. Aster Bunnymund’s ears shot up at his daughter’s shriek, followed by the quickly by the rest of him. For a split second his body stood frozen. Then he bolted, abandoning his egg-herd to become a gray blur that raced across the Warren’s green.

“Jazzy!” The name ripped from his throat, strangled and hoarse. “Coral! Kaffir! _Kits!_ ”

Over the years, he’d heard his children call him many times. He’d heard them whine and tattle and bring him boo-boos and ask for just one more story, Daddy, please. But he’d never once, in thirty years, heard any of the kits so terrified.

He galloped through the Warren, catching only enough breath for a bush cry that summoned all the sentries within earshot. Googies scattered to make way for their stone brothers, diving into protective nooks and crannies. The sentinel eggs thundered across the fields, their top halves spinning to faces ready for war.

Bunny’s ears twitched and darted to follow every sound, honing in on his daughters’ continued frightened cries. Too many echoes. They weren’t in the Warren. He dove into the first tunnel he saw, his sentinels scattering to find their own entrances or to take up post against invaders. The tunnels responded to his pounding, narrowing and straightening to lead him where his children called.

An acidic scent he’d hoped never to sniff again hit him full-force. A Fearling. No, Fearling _s_ , a dozen or more. The first distant glimpse of writhing darkness with faces twisted in horror nearly stopped the heart in his chest. Fearlings had lost much of their ferocity over the centuries, but still Aster’s mind was thrown back to the dark past, to memories of ravaged warrens and raging battles and a people slaughtered to a man.

And then he saw three writhing, clinging Fearlings baring down on his Coralberry and Jasmine, and he saw red.

Just as Coral tripped, taking her sister down with her, twin boomerangs sliced through the air, cutting down the Fearlings where they flew. The dark creatures let out howls of pain and fell to black sand the scattered the dark earth.

Aster snatch his weapons on the backswing and swept the girls into his arms, clinging with all his strength. Coralberry sobbed against his shoulder, trembling in fear. Jasmine tried to keep up a brave face,  but there were tears in her eyes as well, and she was running funny – her left foot had been twisted in the flight. But Bunny smell no blood, no hint of Fearling venom or claws. They were safe. His girls were safe.

His _girls_.

“Where’s your brother?” he demanded, perhaps a bit harsh in his fear. Coralberry sobbed harder, in no state to give a coherent reply. “Jazzy. Where is Kaffir?”

The self-proclaimed eldest of the litter rubbed her puffy eyes and pointed back down the tunnel from where they’d come. “We, we told him not to. We told him but we couldn’t…”

Darkness lay in that direction, darker and colder than these tunnels were ever meant to be.

Bunnymund took a deep breath to steady his pounding heart. He nuzzled each girl once and herded them behind him, pointing down the well-lit, familiar and dry tunnels they all knew. “Back to the Warren, both of you. Stay with the Guards. Go.”

Jasmine nodded and quickly herded Coralberry away. Once they were off Aster bolted again, diving through tunnels too small and closed for his sentinel eggs. He had not carved this route, never seen it before in his life. Someone else had brought this here, some _thing_ else invaded his home.

Fearling claws tore from the darkness, raking at his shoulder and ears as he shot by. Any foolish enough to cross his path directly met with boomerangs and egg-bombs that tore them to shreds. Bunny swore beneath his breath that he would clear ever last one of the nasty beings from his home, but now was not the time. He had to find Kaffir. His son needed him.

Ahead, he finally caught wind of Kaffir’s voice, shouting not to him but at an enemy. “Let go!” he yelled. “Give it back! Let me go!”

Bunny burst onto the scene to find Kaffir fighting with a wall that was not a wall. Black tendrils coiled from a plane of liquid night, holding _Jack’s_ staff hostage and threatening to swallow it whole. Kaffir had a tight hold with both hands, his feet braced against the wall to pull back, but it was useless. Already the darkness had swallowed his feet, and now the tendrils were working their way up his brilliant white fur.

“Kaffir!” Bunny shouted, tearing through the Fearlings who tried to bar his path.

His son twisted, his blue eyes wide with terror. He yanked a hand off the staff and stretched for his father, groping against the air for a grip. “Dad, I’m stuck!”

“It’s going to be okay, buck. I’m gonna get you out of here, I’m gonna –”

Aster’s words caught in his throat. The grasping tendrils from the wall of night had taken form, revealing a gaunt gray face and pale eyes that he knew glinted gold when exposed to light. A smile like serrated knives cut through the darkness as gray fingers fisted in his son’s white fur.

Pitch Black, the King of Nightmares, laughed. Bunnymund leapt at him, his weapon drawn, the other arm outstretched to snatch Kaffir away from the proverbial monster, the Boogieman.

He hit the wall. His hand found only packed earth and moss.

“No…” Bunny gasped, momentarily too stunned to move. Everything was gone. The darkness had retreated. All that remained was the normal tunnel’s gloom. There were no Fearlings. No Pitch. No Kaffir.

Bunny tore into the earth, putting all of his skills as tunneler extraordinaire to work. In moments, he’d hollowed out an extra twelve feet of tunnel…and realized, like a blow straight to the heart, that it would do no good.

Kaffir, his Kaffir, his only son, _Jack’s_ only son…was gone. 


	4. Chapter 4

_Thirty years previous_

_January_

 

Jack Frost opened his eyes to the red wood of a cool, dim room and a single tree filled with glittering, magical lights. The North Pole. He lay still a moment, trying to recall why he would have slept there rather than the Warren. The snuffling of tiny things in the same room brought it all into sharp focus.

The babies.

He sat up. A jolt of pain from his midsection had him flat again in seconds, clutching his stomach, which felt awfully flat after all these months. Beneath the thin cloth of a sterile shirt, he felt the ridges and bumps of a new scar stitched shut along the width of his hips. Of course. Thanks to the magical-fueled conception, a caesarean section had been their only choice for the birth. They’d come to the Pole because it was easiest to sterilize, contained the most magical reference in case of emergency, and had the best defenses should a certain wicked someone try to interfere.

Jack lay on his back, tucked between sheets enchanted to keep cool, and blinked the last grains of Dreamsand from his eyes. He’d dreamt, during the deep sleep, of things to come. Of the home they’d built into the Warren, its many rooms filled with laughter. Of children, grown old enough to run and laugh and play. Of a family. His family. Together.

A sigh slipped through his lips, coming out somewhere between a laugh and a sob. There was no way that Sandy could have known – he’d kept the secret so close these last few months – but he was grateful for even the briefest glimpse of the life he wouldn’t share. Already, Jack could feel his temperature spiking. Frost faded from his fingers, which warmed with a color they hadn’t born for centuries. When he flexed his hands and feet, the joints ached with deep-seated exhaustion, and the warning of his visit with Death echoed in his ear.

_“THE MAGIC WOULD BE STRAINED TO CREATE EVEN A SINGLE NEW LIFE, LET ALONE THREE.”_

The snuffling came again. Jack turned his head. A blue-gray bassinet rested against the wall not five feet from his bed, alongside his staff, which stood guard like a watchful nightlight. His hearted jumped with excitement. They were finally here.

Ignoring the protests of his limbs, Jack dragged himself to the end of the mattress and swung his legs from the bed. The wood felt cold against his feet. It’d been so long since he’d registered ‘cold’ as anything but comfort that Jack shuddered in surprise. Already, his powers were slipping. Soon, what little magic remained in him would be gone.

But it wasn’t gone until just yet. A tiny sliver of his mind, the part that made him _a_ “Jack,” whispered that he had extracted a promise from Death itself. They would not take him until he laid eyes on his children. If he were to turn back now, slip out the window and into the night, he could escape this fate and…

And what? Never return to his mate and home? Leave his family and fellow Guardians with no answers, no explanation, and no way to give them help in the future? Cling to a weak half-life of drained magic and never see his own children?

No. He’d read enough fairytales to know that it would only come back to bite him in the end, and it would go against everything he’d been born to do. Better to let things happen now, when the time was right.

He slipped from the bed, knees buckling under his own weight. He stumbled the five feet, caught himself on the wall, and sank to the floor, grasping the edge of the bassinet. His head spun. He closed his eyes and gulped down a few breaths, willing himself to say awake. Just a bit longer now. Just a little more.

He peered into the bassinet. This time, his breath caught on wonder.

Three little balls of fur, larger than a Tooth Fairy but smaller than an elf, lay curled on their stomachs in a nest of knitted sheets. The snuggled together for warmth and comfort, the two with coats of varied gray nuzzling close while their white-furred sibling slept a few inches separate, but within reaching distant.

Jack let out the breath he hadn’t thought to hold. It ghosted over the tiny ears, which twitched against the little heads of the baby rabbits. No, not rabbits. Pookas. The first Pooka children born in millennia. His and Aster’s precious kits.

He reached into the cradle, but just as his fingers brushed the white-furred head the door to the room opened. Jack jerked for his staff on instinct to defend the cradle. It was only Bunnymund, who looked surprise to see his mate out of bed.

“Jack? What’re you doing?” Keeping his voice soft and his footsteps softer. Aster moved to Jack’s side. His paws grasped his mate’s shoulder to offer support. “You shouldn’t be out of bed. You’re liable to pull out the stitches.”

“I’m fine,” said Jack, though his voice was so breathless that he knew Bunny would never believe him.

Aster frowned and pressed the pads of one paw against Jack’s forehead. “You ain’t fine. You’re burning up. Must be another complication.”

That’s what North had called all his symptoms, all these months. ‘Complications.’ He said that they were only to be expected with such an unusual pregnancy. They’d monitored them all from the fevers to the power fluctuations to sudden moments of weakness, but none of the other Guardians guessed the truth.

Bunny stroked the boy’s white hair, keeping him close. “C’mon Jackie. Let’s get you back to bed.”

“No.” Jack dug his fingers into the side of the bassinet. He couldn’t go now, it was too soon. He had to…had to…

He steadied his breathing and trailed his eyes to the three tiny balls for fur. All of his fear and concern evaporated, replaced with a warmth from his very center. “I just want to see them. A little longer. Please.”

Bunnymund sighed, but relented his face softening with a pleased warmth of his own. He nuzzled Jack’s head and wrapped an arm around him for extra support, smiling down at the cluster of newborn kits. “They are beautiful, ain’t they?”

“They are.” Jack reached into the cradle again and finished the move he’d aimed at before, stroking the head of their little white loner. “How many of each?”

“Two girls. One boy. That’s the buck there in the white.” Bunnymund beamed as the pale kit began to grunt in his sleep, pressing against the comfort of petting fingers. “Lookit that. He knows his dam.”

Jack chuckled, soft enough not to wake the kits. “That still sounds like a curse.”

“You’d rather be ‘Mama’?”

“No.”

The white buck grunted again and flopped over on his side, one paw coming to rest on the ear of a sister, who was slightly large and only a few shades darker than he. The doe huffed and batted at the offending paw, curling tighter around their third sibling, who was the smallest of the trio by far.

“You still like Kaffir?” asked Aster, referring to the list of names they’d picked out while North was busy with the Christmas rush.

“It’s perfect.” Jack ran his thumb along their son’s chin one last time before moving onto the other two, petting their heads, their backs, and the length of their ears. “And the girls?”

“I still think Jasmine’s a beaut,” said Bunny, nudging the silver-furred kit in question to minimize the weight she pressed against her sister. “And for the little Sheila, Coralberry. She’s a bit of a runt sure, but with the right diet she’ll be up to size in now time.”

Jack committed the names to memory along with the feel of their kitten-soft fur and the unique sound of each voice. All too soon, Bunny pulled his arms and gathered him off the floor. “Come along now, Dammy. Let’s get you into bed. You need to rest. Kits’ll be up again soon enough, you’ll see.”

Jack didn’t fight it this time, allowing Aster to carry him back to bed. Feeling exhausted by safe in the familiar arms, he shifted to place his hands in the crook of Bunnymund’s neck, rubbing his face against the fur. They’d never been able to kiss in the traditional human sense – Bunny’s mouth wasn’t built for it – so they’d come up with other ways to show their affection over the decades.

“I love you,” he whispered, aware that this was probably the last time he’d ever get to say it.

“Love yeh too, you nut.” Bunny tucked Jack into the blissfully cool sheets and returned the nuzzling before moving on to an eskimo kiss and pressing his muzzle to the pale forehead. Concern returned to his eyes. Jack’s temperature had, apparently, not improved. “I can stay, if you want. Right here.”

Jack almost said yes. But then he imagined Bunny waking in the middle of the night, finding him unresponsive, and racing futilely to save his already-ended life; or worse, rising the next morning to find his lover dead in his arms. He’d already been through so much heartache. Jack couldn’t do that to him too.

“Nah,” said the Guardian of Fun, giving his mate’s furry paw a final squeeze. “We’ll be fine, Daddy. You go get your eggs all in one basket and come back in the morning.”

With a final nuzzle and a promise to return by morning, the Guardian of Hope bid his family good night and left the room, sealing the door behind him. Jack allowed himself to feel the ache of his exhaustion only after his lover was long gone, his breath now coming in shallow pants as his extremities started to go numb.

Drawing on the last flickering remnants of his magic, he drew his right hand into a fist and poured every ounce of fun and joy into its palm. It solidified into three perfect snowflakes, each sparkling blue with the light of his center. He blew them towards the bassinet, trusting the wind to guide one onto each of the tiny, twitching pink noses in turn. A small chorus of satisfied grunts and trills of joy were his reward.

“Be happy,” he whispered, each word and each breath softer than the last. “Have fun. Take care of each other, and your daddy too. I love you.”

He turned his head from the cradle, looked up to the carved red ceiling, and closed his eyes.

_Okay,_ he thought. _I’m ready._

Somewhere in the distant past, his little sister called his name. He followed, as he had before. This time, he found her. 


	5. Chapter 5

In the wake of a successful Christmas and its accompanying New Year, the North Pole was in its rarest of states: quiet. Many yeti were away on well-deserved vacations, some to exotic tropical locales and others to visit family in their old Tibetan colony. Only North and a small contingent of loyal volunteers remained to convert the workshop from its Christmas festivities to a suitable location for birthday fun on behalf of the pooka children, whom Santa loved as though they were his own grandchildren. Today as the big day, but the children’s father was devoted to his peoples’ traditions and kept the exact day of their birth as private time for immediately family. North did not expect to see a single fluffy cotton tail until late the next day. 

He was therefore surprised when E. Aster Bunnymund kicked open the front door and bounded into the Pole as though a hell-hound were on his fuzzy heels. He hollered for North, bounding up the stairs to the Globe Room in massive leaps. His front paws were stained with mud all the way to the shoulder. His children – no, only the two young does – clung to his back and to each other as their father raced through the workshop.

North rushed to answer the call, unable to even grab his coat as he rushed to meet his frantic old friend. “Bunny!” he gasped. “What on earth–?”

“He’s back.” Bunny’s shoulders heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His green eyes brimmed with animalistic fury and all-too-human fear. “Pitch. He’s back. He has my son.”

Five second later, the Northern Lights went live, calling the Guardians to arms.

* * *

 

Frigid wind. Bitter cold. The heavy scent of fresh snow. 

Something was terribly wrong.

Kaffir made his way through the Warren, frozen grass snapping beneath his paws. Snow piled in the earthen corners. The river and pools froze all the way to their banks. Every stalk of every plant from flower to tree bore an inch-thick coat of ice. Kaffir lingered by an egg-plant and hesitantly brushed its ice-encrusted blossom. It fell from the stem and shattered on the cold, hard ground.

Kaffir keened, clutching Dam’s staff close. He strained his ears for any familiar sound. Where were the egg sentinels, the warriors, the little googies they guarded for the children? Where were his sisters? With the Warren in such a state, what would happen to Easter?

The stillness was maddening, and the utter loss of life no better. Finally, he located his father, hunched atop the tallest hill, surveying his devastated domain. His ears hung low and his shoulders sagged. Kaffir had never seen him so despondent, as though every drop of hope had been sapped away.

Fighting down the gnawing hints of shame and fear, Kaffir approached his father, his paws tight around the staff in his hands. “Dad?”

Bunnymund barely moved, a single twitch of one ear the only acknowledgement of his son’s arrival. Tired green eyes stared out at the ruined Warren, the fur of his muzzle streaked with tear-tracks and matted with mudd. Without turning, he extended one hand to Kaffir. “Yeh better give that back, buck.”

Kaffir pulled the staff close to his chest. He didn’t want to give it back, it was _his_ , it’d been meant for him, it responded to him. But…but if he _had_ caused so much devastation…

His ducked his head in shame and returned the staff to his father. Frost faded from its form as it passed out of Kaffir’s hand and into Aster’s. The Easter Bunny held the crook close, examining it for damage, never turning his gaze towards his only son.

After what felt like an age, he sighed and turned away from Kaffir completely. “You need to go.”

“Go?” Kaffir pressed his ears against his skull. “But…but…”

“No ‘buts.’ I’ve already made arrangements.” Green eyes shifted right past the white buck to glance at the towering figures he hadn’t heard come up behind him. “Fellas?”

Strong, fuzzy hands wrenched Kaffir into the air, his limbs flailing as powerful arms flung him over one shoulder like a sack of bulbs. Kaffir scrambled against the hold, but he couldn’t get a grip on the slick yeti fur and didn’t have the strength to wriggle himself free. “No,” he gasped, squirming and kicking. “No, Dad, please. Please don’t send me away!”

His father turned a deaf ear, cradling Dammy’s staff like a precious treasure. Green eyes remained locked on the aged wood as the distance between them grew and the gray pooka grew gradually smaller and smaller.

“Dad!” Kaffir sobbed. “Dad, I’m sorry! Daddy, please! _Daddy!_ ”

With a strangled gasp, Kaffir threw open his eyes, his entire body trembling in the wake of his nightmare. He found himself not in the Warren, as he had hoped, but in formless darkness that seemed to go on forever. Gasping through his sobs, he scrambled in the dark until his paws found Dammy’s staff, lying on the smooth, indistinct surface beside him. He snatched it up and leapt into the darkness with no idea of where he was or where he was going, intent only on escaping from his nightmare.

He strained his ears, picking up nothing but his own pounding feet and the distant echo of something in the shadows chattering and neighing all. He bit down on his lower lip, muffling the urge to sob or cry out for his father. Daddy wasn’t here. If he called, those things would find him first. The staff hummed in his hand as though trying to be comforting but, in his fear, he barely noticed.

Running blind, it wasn’t long before he struck a wall. He bounced off the unseen barrier and fell, but instead of hitting floor he just kept falling, tumbling head over tail into the dark. It was worse, a hundred times worse than tumbling through the Warren’s tunnels, because he had no idea of how long the fall would be or if he would just keep falling, falling…

He struck ground shoulder-first, knocking the air from his lungs. Here a sick and pale light cut through the darkness, but Kaffir could not appreciate its mercy. Winded, he curled up on himself and quietly sobbed. In pain, in fear, in desperation…all he wanted was to go home.

As his breath and sense returned, Kaffir felt fingers in his fur. Human, or at least humanoid. They stroked his ears and rubbed his head in soothing circles, too small for Deda North but too big for either Tooth or Sandy. The gentle patterns brought soothing thoughts to mind, memories that Kaffir had not even realized he had.

Stilling beneath the soothing touch, he hesitantly opened one eyes. “Dammy…?”

Razor-sharp teeth like the jaw of a shark smiled down at him through the gloom.

Kaffir screamed and tried to leap away, but the long fingers dragged him back by the scruff of his neck. “Whoa there, little rabbit,” said a lilting voice, smooth and dark as velvet. “Just where do you think you’re going?”

“G-Get off!” Kaffir squirmed to escape the grasping hands of the Nightmare King, striking first with his hind paws, then taking a sweep with the staff. When the crook made contact, hoarfrost burst all down one gaunt shoulder, startling his captor enough to let him go.

Kaffir landed in a puddle and nearly soaked himself scrambling away. He emerged from the shadows onto a crumbling stone bridge with iron filigree that creaked and groaned in the slightest breeze. Dark water, glistening as though from oil, spread in either direction like a river.

Kaffir darted to the center of the bridge for high ground and scanned the cavernous room for an exit. When he found none, he twisted to face the Nightmare King, never turning his back and keeping the staff raised in defense. “S-Stay away from me.”

Pitch Back, the Boogieman, chuckled. “Aw…look how fluffy you are. Puffing up to pretend you’re big and strong, just like your _daddy_.”

Kaffir had indeed bristled to defend himself, an instinct he always hated because it only served to give him the appearance of a marshmallow peep. The temperature immediately around him dropped like a stone, the water drops on his fur freezing into crystalline beads. He shuffled backwards off the bridge, leaving frost on every stone. His blue eyes darted this way and that, searching for a place to run. 

The Boogieman followed him, pausing regally while the bridge gave him the higher ground. “Do you know who I am?”

Of course he did. Kaffir was the son of a Guardian, of course he knew their greatest enemy. But his throat closed up before h could say a word. He nodded hesitantly, just once.

“Then you must know that it’s no use running. You’re in my home now.”

Kaffir bolted, darting down a cobblestone trail that branched off the riverbank and followed the chamber wall on a steady downward slope.

“I wouldn’t wander if I were,” called Pitch.

Kaffir took the first turn he spotted, a sharp left under an arch with a tunnel that curved into the darkness. Three writhing, snorting, stomping shadows cut him off, threatening to trample him beneath their fiery hooves. Kaffir scrambled back and hit the deck just before the Nightmares galloped over him, their hooves striking so close that his ears could feel the heat.

Before he could get his bearings, Pitch Black appeared at his side. The Nightmare King clicked his tongue. “I did warn you.”

Kaffir hurried to his feet, threw his back against the wall, and held his staff in front of him, ready to defend. Pitch eyed the weapon. Something almost like longing passed across his silvery eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that. Too long.”

Kaffir gulped. His legs trembled and threatened to give way. The staff crackled with ice as the Boogieman passed him by, his arms folded regally in the small of his back.

“You see…” He paused by the shattered remnant of an old, fallen birdcage, which hung half in the river and half out of it. “Like so many of our kind, I have a unique talent, a field of expertise, if you will. As your _father_ knows hope and the Sandman knows dreams, I know fear. All fear. Everyone’s fear. Your fear.”

Though he’d tried desperately to resist it, Kaffir blinked. In the next moment, Pitch Black was gone, but his voice remained, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“You, little rabbit – Kaffir, was it? – you’re afraid of your family.”

Kaffir shook his head and took off running down the path, desperate to find an exit, any exit, anything that might mean a way out. All he found was more branches, more cages, more bridges, more tunnels. Pitch Black’s voice followed him all the way.

“You fear that you don’t belong with them. You’re too different, too cold, too much of a nuisance. And because you don’t fit in, you’re afraid they’ll never understand, that they’ll never truly accept you, and that one day they’ll figure out how wrong you are and reject you, once and for all. Such big, sad fears for such a little boy.”

Kaffir tripped. He rolled down a slope and only stopped when he hit the wall at the end of the path. His feet were wet. His paws were wet. His ears were soaked and heavy, flopping messily in his face.

“And the saddest thing of all is…”

From behind him, where there should have been a wall, Pitch’s hands appeared. They took hold of Kaffir’s left ear and lifted it up just enough for Pitch to place his mouth beside the shell and whisper, “It’s all true. All of it. Every last word.”

“You’re lying.” Kaffir kicked with his hind legs, catching the wall instead of Pitch’s gut. He used the momentum to jump away, but the air in this place wouldn’t carry him like the wind in the Warren. He was on his own. “You’re lying, you’re a liar!”

“Are you so sure?” Pitch’s laugh echoed through the gloomy maze, accompanied by the high-pitched giggles on an unseen host. The King’s image fell across a nearby wall, towering three stories tall, but it was only his shadow. “What is it that your sisters always say? ‘Go somewhere else, Kaffie, you’re too cold. Don’t touch that, Kaffie, you’ll just make a mess. Stay out of the way, Kaffie, you ruin everything.”

Kaffir fled the shadow, darting down a thin hall that that only darkness awaited. The shadows reached out as he ran, raking claws through his fur. When he emerged again, he was back in the main room, precariously perched on an iron beam a hundred feet from the ground.

“They never even try to understand you. And really, how could they? They’re spring people, your sisters, with their flowers and trees and bright colors and pretty eggs. How could they possibly comprehend a creature of winter like you?”

Kaffir hesitated on the edge and considered turning around, but the hall from whence he came swarmed with Fearlings. They reached for him with massive sharp claws. He yelped and scrambled back onto the beam, only for his foot to catch on Dammy’s staff. He tripped and plummeted down, down…

“And then there’s your _father_.”

The final word from Pitch’s lips dripped with a special kind of hatred. His hand snapped from the darkness and caught the staff, leaving Kaffir dangling at the mercy of the Nightmare King.

“Oh, yes, your _father_ ,” hissed Pitch, giving the staff a twist. Kaffir fell into the wall, which was now the floor, and scrambled to right himself without letting go of the staff. Pitch circled him like a shark closing in on its pray. “Dear old _Dad_ , who can’t even stand to look at you. Do you know why that is?”

Kaffir shook his head, even though he knew that it wasn’t really true. Dad looked at him all the time, only sometimes – sometimes, he looked so sad…

“It’s because of this.”

Pitch swept his robe like a cloak of night, summoning a full-length mirror from apparently nowhere. In it, Kaffir saw his own reflection, all four feet of white buck, his fur still downy-soft like a newborn kit. But as he drew closer he saw another figure, transparent and wraith-like, superimposed over his own: A human boy with snow-white hair and Coral’s blue eyes, holding the staff as though it’d been made for him.

The forgotten memory. The petting fingers. The happiness. The love.

Without thinking, Kaffir reached for the human. His paw brushed only cold glass. “Dammy…”

“Yes,” said Pitch, stepping from behind the glass. “That’s why your father can’t stand you. Because every time he looks at you, all he sees is a reflection of the lover _he_ killed.”

Kaffir snapped his paw away, but Pitch had already swept up behind him, keeping him pinned with the reflection of his long-dead Dam. “That’s right. To him, you’re just a walking reminder of his guilt. And he hates you for it.”

“You’re lying.” Kaffir wished that he had four arms, two hold the staff and two to pin down his ears against the dreadful words. “You’re lying you’re lying you’re _lying_.”

“You think so?” Pitch laughed. “Didn’t your dear daddy ever tell you what happened to your…dam?”

He waited for a reply. Kaffir had none to give.

“No?” Pitch clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “For shame. Keeping the truth from your innocent ears to hide his own sins. Well…”

With a snap of his fingers, the mirror disappeared, leaving them inexplicably back on the bridge where Kaffir first arrived. Fearlings clung to the edges and dangled over the water as the Nightmares snorted and stomped on the bank behind them.

“…We’ll have to fix that.” Pitch stood in the center of the bridge and extended his hand to Kaffir. “Come along now. I’ll tell you everything.”

Kaffir didn’t want to go. It was all a trick. The Boogieman would only lie to him and twist the truth to make him more afraid. But with ravenous Nightmares on his tail and Fearling claws on either side, he had no choice.

He took the Nightmare King’s hand. 


	6. Chapter 6

_Thirty Years Previous,_

_January_

 

In the end, it was Phil who found Jack’s body. He came in early that next morning with three bottles of warm formula and tried to rouse the new parent to give the babies their first meal. Moments later he burst into the workshop carrying the limp form, and all hell broke loose. 

Bunnymund returned to the Pole to find the workshop in an uproar. He tried to flag down a yeti, but no one would stop, and he didn’t speak Abominable well enough to interpret a dozen shouts echoing through the cavernous factory at once. His heart racing, he made a bee-line for the infirmary, where all the chaos seemed to be centered, only to be cut off by several yetis waving their arms and shooing him away.

“All right, all right,” he sighed as his way was barred down the third corridor in a row. “I can take a hint, sheesh.”

He retreated to the lower levels, grinding his teeth. The wrongness was palpable, he could practically scent it in the air. Being unable to attach it to a cause wrought havoc on his nerves.

Maybe it really was nothing. Maybe the leftover eggnog had gone off and food-poisoned half the crew. Maybe North added a little too much kick to his fruitcake recipe and was off on one of his sugar-induced flashbacks to his glory days. Maybe there were problems with the reindeer.

All the ‘maybes’ evaporated when he returned to the guest bedroom that had been set aside as a recovery room and found it devoid of Jack. Bunny’s heart sank. Another complication, then. Strewth. It’d already been such a rough pregnancy. Hadn’t Jack had enough already?

In their cradle, the babies began to move, making some of their first sounds: squeaks and whines that didn’t quite turn into cries just yet. They were all too brand-new to understand that the discomfort in their little stomachs was a call for food. Aster let his rising parental instincts drown out the worries for his mate, gathered the infants from the bassinet and carried them to the bed, fetching the bottles a moment later.

He made a nest from the bed sheets, lined the three bottles side-by-side, and nudged a kit towards each rubber nipple. The white buck found his firstand clamped his teeth down on the nub with such determination that it brought a grin to Aster’s face. “Thatta boy, Kaffie. Show ‘em how it’s done.”

Jasmine followed suit a moment later, as though insisting that Kaffir would never beat her at anything, not even pigging out. But Coralberry – that tiny, trembling lump of gray fur – refused to take the bottle even when it was set right against her nose.

Aster scooped the run of the litter into his arms human-style and cradled her close to his chest. He rubbed soothing circles into her neck and set the bottle right between her lips, echoing her sibling’s soft chitters with his teeth. “C’mon, Coral girl, have a bit. Get a little in yeh now, just a tick.”

It never boded well for a kit to refuse food, especially not an undersized runt. Her refusal only added to Bunnymund’s nerves. They were a small litter, by Pooka standards, but they’d be hassle enough sooner or later. Where was Jack? Maybe Coral took after him and wouldn’t eat because it was too warm. Jack could fix that, he should be here, should be recovering, learning to be a dad. So what was going on…?

With a bit of a push, Aster managed to squeeze a few precious drops of formula down Coralberry’s throat right before North stepped through the bedroom door. The toymaker’s sleeves were rolled up and his belt was pulled tight; he’d been working. Normally, the old Cossack would come out of his craft rosy-cheeked, his eyes alight with the wonder of inspiration. Today, those eyes were dull. He looked very old.

Bunnymund’s stomach clenched. North aged, but he did not get old.

“What happened?” he demanded, placing Coralberry in the bassinet with her bottle. “North, what the hell is going on? Where’s Jack?”

North heaved a long sigh. There were wrinkles all around his eyes. Not smile-lines. He wrung his hands to steady their trembling before reaching for his friend’s shoulders. “Bunny…”

“Spit it out, mate!”

North’s grip on his shoulders held firm. “We…We did everything we could.”

Bunny’s ears fell back against his skull. His heart raced and his breath came so fat he could barely get out the words. “What…What’s that supposed to mean?”

He already knew. He could see it in those old, tired eyes.

With a violent jerk, he broke from North’s attempt at comfort and shot out into the hall, bounding straight over the banister, off the globe, and up two floors. His claws scraped and pounded on the hardwood floors, leaving long gashes and nicks, but he didn’t care. This wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening, it was all some terrible joke and he was going to strangle Jack for it because this was _not funny_ and –

No one stopped him from bursting into the infirmary. Not a single yeti dared linger between him and the impossibly still thing on the slab.

Aster stumbled into the room, clinging to hope, his center. But hope could not reset reality. New life could not restore the dead.

Bunny crouched over the still form of his lover. He stroked the pale and his paw came away wet.

He cried. 

* * *

 

Toothiana arrived within the hour. North had only just managed to coax Bunny away from Jack’s – from _Jack_ – when she swooped in through the medical bay doors. For a split second after laying eyes on the body, her feet actually touched the ground. Then she launched herself at the lifeless form and clutched it, bawling.

Sandman came next. He could not mourn. He couldn’t. If he allowed himself to give in to such devastating emotions, the dreams under his care would be irrevocably twisted for months to come. Instead, he threw himself into his task, crafting dreams of snow days and endless blizzards, of dancing with the wind and of drawings in frost that came to life.

North stayed close through it all, quietly working out the details of what had to come next. The silence did not suit him, nor did the age.

None of them had any answers.

Bunny hunched in a window bench, exposed to the bitter cold he normal abhorred, and reminded himself every five minutes to breathe. Breathe. Keep breathing.

Nothing about this felt real. It felt like a nightmare, the ones that had chased him to this planet eons before carrying the news of his peoples’ demise. After all this time, so much peace and happiness, how could this have happened again? How could he have allowed it to happen again?

Lost in his spiraling thoughts, Aster didn’t know how much time had passed before the Lunar Lama appeared. He was the only singular example of the old order that the Guardians had ever met. He was escorted up to their meeting room by a yeti guard, dressed not in the usual silver silks of those who studied the Moon, but in black drapes of mourning.

He said not a word, but went straight to North and bowed low, presenting an envelope of thick parchment written in silvery ink. The message, dictated to the Lamadary over many nights and thousands of moonbeams, told them the whole story, from the limitation of MiM’s magic to Jack’s decision and his forbiddance that Manny tell the others before it was too late.

North read it once to himself, then out-loud to his fellow Guardians. With every slow word Bunny felt his broken heart grow smaller and smaller. Finally, the message was set aside, and the Easter Bunny hunched over on the floor, curling his paws around his ears.

“My fault,” he whispered. “This is all my fault.”

“Vhat? No!”

“Aster, don’t be ridiculous.”

Sandy waved his arms and shook his head wildly.

But Bunny couldn’t hear them over the truth. Jack had not been created to support new life, because that never should have been an issue – he was _male_. It was only because of him, his powers, his own inability to control himself, that it happened at all. And once the seed had been planted, of course Jack would make that choice, and damn the consequences. If he’d chosen any other way, he wouldn’t have been Jack.

The blame was on his shoulders. He’d killed him. He’d murdered his own mate.

Hyperventilating on his own guilt, Aster pounded the floor with his foot. A tunnel opened through six stories and the entire mountain straight into the Warren’s heart. Before anyone could stop him, he leapt in and vanished, leaving behind only a tiny flower that poked up through the floorboards. Within minutes, it wilted, hanging its head.  

A single infant cry echoed through the tunnels in Bunny’s wake, only to be drowned by his own pounding feet and heart. After that, there was only silence. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blergh....how the heck is it September already? Stupid summer running ahead of me and ending before I'm ready...
> 
> Uber sorry that this update took so long. I really struggled with the ending. And I would have had it done two weeks ago, except that I had a surprise house guest drop by for a fortnight that threw all my plans for a loop. But I'm back now, and I'm looking to wrap this baby up in the next couple of chapters, so let's see if I can't finally pull off a decent finale! Here we go!

Bunny paced. He knew he shouldn’t, and that he shouldn’t grind his teeth. It didn’t solve anything and only served to make the kits – to make the _girls_ – more and more anxious. But he couldn’t help it. 

The moment they heard what had happened, the Tooth Fairy armies and Sandy’s dreams took to the skies, scouring every inch of the world for any hint of Pitch Black and his lair. Even with so many eyes, the search took hours, and as each moment passed without word Aster Bunnymund’s fear grew stronger. He remembered, despite himself, what fearling armies had done to Pooka children during the fall of the Golden Age. Though he’d been sent far away with a precious artifact in hand, the screams of terrified kits haunted him in his darkest moments.

To think that Kaffir’s screams would join them…

He forced the thought out of his mind. It wouldn’t happen. They – the Guardians – wouldn’t allow it.

A bell rang out. Aster’s ears shot straight up as Sandy descended from the skylight, rattling a string of jingle bells with all he had. Bunny bounded to meet him over the Guardians’ sigil in the center of the room. North and Tooth – appearing from a nearby study and her perch in the rafters, respectively – joined them seconds later.

“You found them?!”

Sandy nodded, dropping the bells to the ground. He gestured wildly, summoning plumes of golden sand that flickered through symbols faster than the eye could follow.

Relief surged through Bunnymund, so strong that his bones went numb. He sank back on his haunches and ran a hand over his ears. They had their headings. Pitch’s lair could be found. With only half a day between them and the attack, Kaffir still had a fighting chance.

“Excellent, Sandy!” boomed North. Unlike the Easter Bunny, Saint Nick tended to channel all of his anxiety and fear into preparations for battle, leaving him chomping at the bit to charge in for the rescue. “There is no time to lose. Everyone, to the sleigh!”

For once, Bunny didn’t object to the flying deathtrap method of travel. He moved to follow, but stopped, his gaze sliding to the corner of the workshop that Coralberry and Jasmine had claimed for a nest.

Resisting the female yetis’ attempt to coax them down the nursery floor, the sisters had gathered blankets from all of North’s many studies and piled them into a heap nearest the fireplace that overlooked the globe. Between them was a plate of carrot- and berry-flavored cookies that North had created when the kits were teeth, a special extra-hard variety they still craved in times of stress because the gnawing calmed them down. Jasmine chewed hers restlessly, occasionally shifting her sprained ankle to a more comfortable perch. Coral just huddled beneath a quilt, her head in her sister’s lap, and shivered.

Aster’s throat tightened, his heart threatening to break all over again at the sight of them. As Toothiana fluttered by him, his paw shot out and caught her by the wrist. “Tooth…I need you to stay here with the girls.”

“What?” The Queen of the Tooth Fairies bristled, her emerald feathers standing on end. Bunny read the indignant accusations in her eyes and pressed on before her conclusions could jump any further.

“Please, I need to know they’re safe. I have to…” Bunnymund trailed off, noticing for the first time how his paws had been shaking. He took a deep breath. They were Guardians. They could not afford to give in to fear. “Pitch…he got into the Warren. Nearly a thousand years, that ward’s held, and he still managed to slither inside. If he’s got a hook in this place too then…”

He swallowed. Images of the Pole overrun flashed before his eyes. Pitch would have to be suicidal to try it, but if there was even a chance…

“I need to know that, no matter what happens, my girls’ll be safe.” He gripped the Tooth Fairy’s hand, willing his paws to stop trembling. “Please, Tooth. You’ve gotta watch out for ‘em. It’s the only way to be sure.”

The fire in Toothiana’s eyes died, replaced by softened understanding and concern. She placed her hand over his paw. “Of course, Bunny. You can count on me.” She kissed his fuzzy cheek. “Now go get your boy.”

With a final grateful nod, Aster bounded to the sled bay after North and Sandy.

* * *

 

As her fellow Guardians disappeared, Tooth wrung her hands and buzzed around the globe with half-a-dozen of her little selves in her wake. Her entire body and theirs strummed with the call to battle, urging her to take up arms in pursuit of their enemy. But Bunny was right – there was a chance. And the girls needed someone to protect them if it all went wrong.

She caught sight of the little girl Pookas on her next lap, still huddled together in their nest. She thought they’d fallen asleep, until Coralberry lifted her head. Her blue eyes, those eyes that reminded them all so much of Jack and Kaffir, were wide and watery. “Mama Tooth?”

The fairy queen caught her breath. She would never get completely used to that name. Jasmine had coined it long ago, viewing her as the mother of her fairies, and she suspected that it stuck with the girls because she was the only female influence in their lives, the only one around to show them how to be a girl. That made her different than ‘Mama’ or ‘Dammy’, so there’d never been any guilt attached to the name. Still, it felt strange.

Kaffir never used the name. To him, she was just ‘Tooth’.

She cleared her throat and fluttered down to the kits’ level, offering them a gentle smile. “Yes dear?”

“Is Kaffie dead?”

The fairies gasped. Toothiana immediately dropped onto the blankets, and pulled Coralberry into her arms. “Oh, sweet tooth, no.”

“Yes he is.” Coral gave a miserable sniff, big tears splashing down her furry face. “The Boogieman got him and he took him away and he’s never ever gonna come back just like Dammy and – and –”

She hiccupped and began to wail, her keening sobs echoing off the nearest walls. Tooth tucked the little gray head under her chin and stroked the long, soft ears as she whispered reassurances in all the languages she knew.

She remembered doing this for Jack once, centuries ago. It had been just after he became a Guardian, when the full ramifications of the memories he’d retrieved finally hit him and he realized how much he had lost. He’d come to her, as though knowing that she understood loss, and let her hold him while he cried, just like this.

Jasmine, still bundled in the blankets, turned her head away and made an honest attempt to avoid joining in on the cry. She snuffled around the hard carrot cookie, gnawing with her back teeth and muttering under her breath, “Stupid Kaffie. Stupid, stupid, why’d you have to…so _stupid!_ ”

The mini-fairies landed on the silver-furred shoulders and on top of her head and in the thick fur of her collared ruff, nuzzling her with their heads and spreading their little arms wide as they could to cuddle and comfort and coo. Jasmine bit the cookie harder to hold in her crying and only half-succeeded, the blankets below her chin quickly becoming soaked.

Detangling one arm, Toothiana reached across the nest and rubbed the ‘oldest’ kit’s back. With the other, she continued to hold on to the sniffling runt. Though her touch remained soft and her actions kind, the angry fire sparked in her heart. How dare Pitch target this family, _her_ family, after everything they’d already lost? For a split second, she almost hoped that he would make an attempt on the Pole, so that she might have the chance to rend him properly from head to toe.

She squelched that wicked thought and held Coralberry closer, beginning to sing a lullaby in the long-lost language of Punjam Hy Loo. Once the tired kits and dozen fairies were lulled to sleep, she remained with them in the blanket nest and turned her eyes to the bright half-moon peaking down on them through the skylight.

_MiM,_ she wished silently. _Watch over them, please, and bring Kaffir home safe and sound._

Toothiana slowly released her air through her nose, imagining a bright balloon that would carry her wish to their patron. MiM, as a great and terrible being once said, was no god; but it never hurt to have someone of a higher power watching over you.

* * *

 

For once, Aster’s ceaseless thumping on the floor of the sleigh had nothing to do with fear. Or rather, it had nothing to do with his fear of heights or of flying, because he was afraid. He was afraid of what they would find, of what might have happened to his son, of what Pitch had planned for them in his lair.

So the Easter Bunny didn’t complain, not even as the biting ice-cold magic of North’s snow globe enveloped the flying wooden deathtrap and stretched them thin before spitting them out on the other side of the world. For a split second, he closed his eyes and could almost imagine that the frozen magic belonged to the mate he’d lost.

Then it was gone. They reappeared over a dark an untamed woods, left to its own devices by generations of humans. Here, it was nearly midnight, and the moon was hidden by thick clouds.

North snapped the reins, steering them towards the wild trees. “Where to, Sandy?”

Sandman formed an arrow out of sand, pointing the way to a clearing nestled alongside a craggy cliff. A fissure split the gray rocks like the crack in a broken teacup, thin at the top but wide enough at the bottom for a grown man to walk through. In the dark of night, they couldn’t hope to see how deep its darkness stretched.

When they reached, Sandy extended a long tendril of dream sand down into the cave below to be certain of their find. Aster’s heart pounded with anticipation as the sand slinked, inch by inch, into the darkness. If this wasn’t the right place, if this cave didn’t lead to Pitch’s lair, that meant they’d wasted their time. And if they’d wasted this much time…

He wouldn’t consider that possibility. He couldn’t.

To his immense relief, Sandy gave a studious nod that confirmed their suspicions and let his golden stream rise to the cavern’s roof to light their way.

The dark place they found at the end of the trail was smaller than Pitch’s last abode, but still very much in his preferred style. Broken bridges and pieces of masonry scattered every inch. The relative smallness of the pocket realm was augmented by the way that gravity’s rules shifted and changed throughout, turning dozens of twisted flat surfaces into new floors. Tunnels branched off from hundreds of dug-out holes in a twisted mockery of Bunnymund’s home.

Aster took a running leap, bounded off a crumbling statue, and landed ten feet up what had been the wall, but was now his floor. He took a defensive swipe with his boomerang and called out, “Kaffir! Kaffir, I’m here. Can you hear me? Kaffir!”

“Bunny,” North warned, his swords drawn and his eyes trained on the dark corners. But the creatures that lurked there did not advance. Some of them tremble at the sight of the Guardians, either from fear or desire for blood, though it was questionable whether such creatures knew the first

“He has to be here somewhere…Kaffir!” When no reply came, Aster holstered his boomerang and cupped a paw around his muzzle, letting out a shrill bush cry that sent the shadows flying, “ _Coo-ee!_ ”

In the Warren, that was the kit’s signal to make themselves known, to check in with the nearest sentry and assure their father that all was well. Here, it echoed so loudly that crumbling architecture shook. Fearlings took flight and Sandy quickly erected an umbrella to shield himself from the plaster that rained down upon his head.

But there was no sign of Kaffir.

Bunny’s heart clenched, but he would not give up hope. That hope was all he had.

“He’s here,” he said again, and bounded across the nearest bridge, leading the charge into the heart of the Boogieman’s realm as he continued to shout his son’s name.

* * *

 

“Kaffir! _Kaffir!_ ”

The white rabbit’s ears perked at the familiar, distant, echoing calls. His whiskers twitched, catching the barest hint of his father’s scent on the wind, followed by the sweet crispness of fresh-baked cookies and the warmth of golden desert sands. The rest of his body remained still, curled on the edge of a high bridge with no railings, clutching his Dammy’s staff and staring into a pool of liquid night.

But his blue eyes weren’t seeing the water. Unfocused and unsteady, they saw only the pictures that water had held in minutes past, pictures of a bright-faced young spirit with white hair and matching blue eyes who’d laughed and played and died a horrible death. Because of them. Because of _him_.

The Boogieman sat beside him, letting his long legs dangle until the toes of his boots nearly brushed the water. Pitch Black turned his head towards the frantic father’s calls, but made no move to answer them, nor to send the legions of Fearlings that lurked in the shadows to answer the call. Instead, he made a soft noise with his tongue and let his tarnished silver eyes drift back to Kaffir.

“Well,” he said. “Seems _Daddy_ came after all.”

Kaffir didn’t respond. He leaned his head against the cool wood off the staff, one ear drooping to wrap loosely around it like a leaf blown by the wind.

Pitch leaned a little closer, whispering above the tiny kit’s ears. “I could send him away, you know. I could send all of them away. If you’d like, I can expel them all right now and close this place up safe and sound. You could stay here and never have to leave, never have to face the way he looks at you ever again. You know what he did now. He deserves it.”

Kaffir’s ears drooped further, dulling his father’s distant voice. A part of him, smothered and dying, cried out that it couldn’t be true. The Boogieman lied, he knew that. But he’d seen it, he’d heard it, it made sense. It wasn’t sorrow that kept him from telling the truth. It was guilt.

“And,” continued Pitch, closing the distance between them until their shoulders nearly brushed, “if you stay here, I’ll stay with you. It’s the way things should be. Nothing goes better together than cold and dark.  Your Dammy knew that, once. He understood. And if he’d listened to me then…he’d still be alive today…”

Kaffir closed his eyes, because he knew that part was true. If Dammy had listened, he wouldn’t have been with Daddy. If he hadn’t been with Daddy, he would be alive. That meant there wouldn’t be any Kaffir or Jasmine or Coralberry, sure. But maybe that’s the way it should be. They were nothing but a mistake.

The Boogieman slipped an arm around the white rabbit’s shoulders, giving him a supportive squeeze. The other hand slunk like a snake towards the staff. Gray fingers brushed the antique wood.

A loud tone rang out, crisp and clear like a bell of ice. It sang through the dark realm, calling out to the search party, leading them to the hidden place where the Boogieman hid in fear.

Pitch Black let out a cry and fell back as though he’d been stabbed. Kaffir jerked, the dull fog that had closed over his senses – a darkness he hadn’t even noticed – was suddenly cleared. He stared up in shock and surprise at the staff, whose curved tip towered far over his head. It rang again like a bell, the frost all up and down the wood going electric blue with magic that did not come from Kaffir.

The Boogieman’s hands were caked in ice. That hadn’t come from Kaffir, either.

The kit’s blue eyes grew wider still. It was impossible, but without a doubt true. He knew this magic. He knew who it belonged to.

“Dammy,” he breathed.

And so it was. 


	8. Chapter 8

_Thirty Years Previous,_

_Early February_

 

Deep beneath the earth, the Warren lay still as a grave. With winter on its way out, the immense chambers shoulder have been bustling. There were eggs to dye, chocolates to cook, flowers to grow. And yet, the air hung stagnant. Buds remained closed. Eggs continued their sleep beneath grass. 

Bunnymund huddled in his nest, nose buried in blankets, sniffing desperately for his lover’s scent. It did nothing to soothe his aching grief. The sheets were too warm, they smelled of water and earth, not frost and snow. It was so much, too much like the body defrosting in North’s medical bay.

A sob wracked Aster’s body, scraping his sore tonsils. His throat, eyes, and nose were all rubbed raw. His fur went un-groomed, matted with mud and twigs. His very center ached in a way it hadn’t for millennia. Hopelessness settled over him like a putrid cloud, bringing with it guilt and pain.

With no sense of how long he’d lain there, an age could have passed before the distant call of a worried female broke the Warren’s silence. Bunny’s ears twitched instinctively towards the noise, but he made no move to answer. His body seemed so stiff that he was no longer certain he could move even if he wanted to.

The call grew louder, closer, soon echoed by the wordless tweeting and singing of a dozen similar yet smaller voices. One of them grew so close Bunny could feel the wing-beats on his ear. He cracked open an eye and peered listlessly up at the buzzing green form of a tiny Tooth Fairy.

The fairy buzzed around him worriedly, sending out a call to her distant mother. Shortly thereafter, Toothiana herself appeared and gasped at the Easter Bunny’s current state. “Bunny! Oh…”

Her wings stilled as she landed on the edge of his nest, tucking her legs beneath her. She stroked his head and his ears, her small fingers gentle and soothing.

Aster closed his eyes and turned his head from her, pressing his nose further into the blankets. “What’cha doing here, Tooth?”

“I came looking for you, of course,” she said, though even her softest whisper shattered the silence like a falling glass. “It’s been three days.”

Bunny closed his eyes. Three days. Was that all? Here he was, living thousands of years, able at the peak of his strength to hop back and forth through time without so much as a lickity-split, and yet these three days felt to him as long as all the time that came before.

When he didn’t respond, Tooth’s hands shifted to rub a spot just below his ears that usually felt so soothing in times of stress. “Bunny. Oh, Bunny. I know it’s hard. You’re in a lot of pain right now, but I need you to listen to me. You need to come back to the Pole.”

The Pole! Surrounded by endless ice and barren cold, everything Jack had loved and embodied? Return there, where memories lurked behind every corner, where’d they’d shared so many firsts, where _his_ body no doubt lay in state, melting and dead and too, too warm?

Bunnymund shoved away from the comforting hand, scrambling out of the nest and across the burrow as though he’d been burned. Rearing up on two legs like a man, he pressed his back against the dirt wall and gasped. “No. No way, I can’t. I can’t.”

“Bunny,” Toothiana took flight, buzzing near but keeping enough distance that Aster’s flight instincts wouldn’t take over. “Please…”

“I _can’t_. Can’t you see that? I – I –” Bunny’s chest heaved with panic, his short pants unable to draw enough air for his words. “I can’t. It’s my fault.”

“Bunny–”

“I killed him!” Bunny cried. “Jack is _dead,_ he’s gone for good, and it’s all because of –”

Toothiana struck the rabbit hard across the face with the flat of her hand. Aster choked on his shock, the last sentence dying in his throat. The little Tooth Fairies hovering at the door gasped.

Tooth’s violet eyes blazed with the cold fury that once sealed her reputation as the fierce and powerful Warrior Queen. “E. Aster Bunnymund,” she spat through her gritted teeth. “You listen to me right now.”

Boneless with shock, Aster slide down the wall and sank to the floor, his eyes locked on the Tooth Fairy Queen in all her righteous, indignant glory.

“Yes,” she said. “Jack is dead. But it is _not_ your fault, an no matter how much you punish yourself for it, nothing is going to bring him back. He _knew_ what would happen, he made his choice, and if you love him at all you’ll respect him for that instead of wallowing down here feeling sorry for yourself.”

She sniffled and lifted her head, maintaining a regal air of authority despite the trembling that overtook her body. “You’re not the only one who lost him, Bunny. We all did.”

For the first time, Aster noticed how red her eyes were beyond their irises’ brilliant shade. Her feathers, from head to tail, were meticulously groomed in the way she only managed when she desperately needed something to occupy her mind. Her nails, meanwhile, had been gnawed to the quick.

“You are better than this,” she told him firmly. “You are stronger than this. You’ve survived loss before and you will do it again. We need you. They –” Her voice broke. She choked down a sob. “Your children need you.”

Children…

The _kits_.

Bunnymund jerked straight up, cold horror gripping his heart. He’d forgotten. How could he have forgotten? Brand-new, only a few days in the world, too tiny even to open their eyes…

“What’s happened?”

Toothiana sagged with relief, regality giving way to raw concern. “The littlest one…”

“Coralberry?”

“Yes. We can’t get her to eat. We’ve tried everything, but she won’t take a single drop. If she doesn’t eat something soon she may not…”

That was all Bunnymund needed to hear. Before Tooth could draw her next breath, he’d darted from the burrow to Warren, and from there to tunnels that lead to the Pole. There was no time for niceties, not a moment to lose. His kits needed their daddy.

* * *

 

In the makeshift nursery of a guest room, a worried yet rocked the frighteningly still bundle of gray fur close to her chest. While it was no substitute for their true parents, her two siblings responded well to the yeti’s care, finding comfort in their thick fur and warmth. But no matter who held her, the wee runt of the little answered to no one. 

North tested another bottle of formula against his arm. Over the last three days, they’d tried every temperature from nearly frozen to almost boiling, and still the little rabbit would not eat. As Sandy held a worried watch over her sleeping littermates, North approached the poke in the yeti’s care and lowered the lukewarm bottle to her mouth.

“Come, little one,” he whispered. “You must eat. You must. It is the only way you will grow strong.”

He nudged her tiny, pink lips with the rubber nipple. The wee pooka made no move to take it, refusing even to lift her nose.

Her nanny made a pained noise, the sort that only came when a yeti child fell ill. North returned her pained expression and shifted the bottle. “Please, baby. For Jack’s sake. Please.”

“Give her here.”

North jerked, turning to face the voice at the door. There stood Bunnymund, his fur ruined, his face streaked with tears, pain and determination warring in his green eyes.

Without hesitation, North surrendered the bottle. The yeti nanny passed the child into her father’s arms. Aster cradled her against his ruff, rocked her, nuzzled her, and gently lowered the bottle to her mouth.

“C’mon Coral,” he whispered, rubbing a spot on the back of her neck that he’d seen countless pooka mothers use to soothe their young. “Open up for Daddy. There’s a girl.”

For an agonizing minute, the gray kit lay still and silent as before. Then she gave a quiet squeak and opened her mouth, accepting the first few precious drops of formula from the nipple’s edge.

All those assembled breathed a sigh of relief. Bunnymund held Coral steady and shared a grateful glance with each of them before settling on North. His ears drooped. “I’m sorry.”

Old Saint Nick raised a fluffy white brow. “For?”

“For being such a drongo.”

North nodded, closing his tired, red-rimmed eyes. He patted Aster’s shoulder on his out the door, assuring the Easter Bunny without words that there was nothing to forgive. Sandy sprinkled extra sand over the sleeping kits before bobbing out with the nanny in tow. They would be back soon. There were arrangements that needed to be made, for the burial, and for Easter. But for now, the fledgling family needed their precious time alone.

Aster settled on the bed, holding Coralberry close until she’d drunk her fill. Once she finished, her burped her and lay her among her sleeping siblings in the bassinet. He lingered there for a long while, stroking each of their tiny ears in turn.

“I’m sorry,” he told them, over and over. “I’m so sorry. But it’s all gonna be all right now, you’ll see. Daddy’s here now.

“Daddy’s here.”


	9. Chapter 9

A bright tone rang through the darkness, clear as the one note sounded by an ice-bell before it shattered. Cold wind howled in answer, heavy with snow. It billowed once around the Guardians before leading the way through the blind passages, a few of its snowflakes glowing with blue light to mark the path. 

Bunny twisted after the sound, whiskers twitching, ears at the ready. A scent flew on the wind, one he knew as well as his own. But it couldn’t be, it couldn’t…

Sandy took first flight, dashing after the wind on his golden cloud. Aster followed only seconds behind, bounding off dark walls and shining constructs without care for distraction save to answer the call. The fearlings that burst from the walls told them that they were getting closer, each monster cut down by the Guardians’ weapons as they raced after the sound.

A cry of pain from up ahead echoed in Bunnymund’s ears. His heart nearly stopped before he realized that the voice didn’t belong to Kaffir. It was Pitch. As Aster leapt from Sandy’s cloud to the apex of a fallen bridge, he finally saw them, his son’s bright white fur standing out against the darkness.

Kaffir scrambled backwards, hind claws digging into the soft ear, only the glowing staff in his hands keeping him from toppling onto his back. Pitch loomed over him, clutching a hand encrusted with jagged crystals of ice. The shepherd’s crook illuminated them both, soft and steady as the light of the moon.

In all his centuries, Bunnymund had only known two beings to possess that kind of magic. One had been Nightlight, the spritely child-Guardian blessed by the parents of the Man in the Moon. And the other…

“Jack,” whispered North, coming to a stop at Bunny’s side. The same awe that filled his voice threatened to overflow in Aster’s mind. His throat tightened. In his wildest dreams, he’d never imagined that he would see that magic again.

Their surprise could only be brief. In that next second, Pitch stripped the ice from his hand with a hiss of pain and advanced on Kaffir, tarnished silver eyes flashing with fury.

As all his instincts screamed to guard the kit, Aster leapt from the broken bridge and bounded to the edge of the lake that separated them from the Nightmare King. Brandishing a boomerang, he hollered, “Kaffir!”

Pitch stopped in mid-advance as the kit jerked towards the sound of his name. As the Sandman swept Bunny and North across the lake on golden clouds, the Nightmare King sighed. “Now, this is just _typical_. And here I’d hoped you might outgrow your collective taste for flash and heroics.”

“Dad…” Kaffir tried to meet his father on the shore, but as he struggled to change direction the Boogieman swept him up in one arm. Pitch pinned the white pooka from behind with an arm across the chest, careful to only allow clothed skin contact with the freezing crook.

“Ah-ah-ah,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that if were you.”

Bunny saw red. Snarling, he leapt from the cloud into the shallows, ignoring the nasty sludge that stained his hindquarters in favor of flinging his boomerang at Pitch’s head. “Get your hands off my son!”

Pitch ducked the boomerang and quickly side-stepped its backswing, pushing Kaffir more firmly in front of him as a shield. North and Sandy hurried to back up Bunnymund, the old cossack brandishing his saber at Pitch’s head. “Release the boy, now.”

“And why would I do that?” Pitched leaned over Kaffir until the hold more resembled a hug than a grapple. “So your Guardians can ignore him until he fades away, like you did Jack Frost?”

Aster’s ears burned with rage. He’d have taken the Boogieman’s head right there, if the coward wasn’t using his son as a shield. “Shut yer trap. You’ve got no right to talk about him.”

“I have every right,” snapped Pitch, venom dripping from his every word. “I have more right than you, rodent. You’re the reason he’s dead.”

A furious cloud of gold sand burst from Sandman’s body. The former wishing star was normally so in control of his emotions, even in the midst of battle, that seeing him enraged startled even his allies. In answer, the remaining fearlings scurried from their holes, racing to their master to flank the Guardians from all sides.

The part of Bunnymund’s mind that would always be a warrior knew that, despite the numbers, the fearlings did not have the power to defeat three Guardians at peak strength. But its reasoning quickly drowned in horror, because no shock registered in Kaffir’s eyes. They contained only sorrow and fear.

Pitch’s smile curled cruelly. “Oh yes. You worked so hard to keep that little secret under wraps, didn’t you? You used every trick in the book to make sure your children remained in the dark.”

He brought his other arm to join its partner, lay his cheek atop Kaffir’s head, and stroked the white ears. “Well, now the darkness is whispering back. And dear Kaffir’s heard every word.”

It wasn’t Bunnymund’s worst nightmare – he could only thank MiM for that – but it still hurt like a kick to the lungs. It hurt even worse that Kaffir refused to meet his eye, cringing away each time he made an attempt.

The fearlings’ chatter grew louder, the new surge of dark feelings wetting their wicked appetite. The coils of frost on Pitch’s arm became hoarfrost, blossoming into a tiny forest of icy trees. Rather than anger, the Boogieman regard the ice with pure affection. His eyes trailed to the staff’s crook and his smile grew wistful.

“Oh Jack,” he whispered, as though he’d forgotten the Guardians were even there. “If only you had chosen more wisely, so long ago. You could have lived forever. We could have ruled forever.”

He reached for the staff, leaving only his left arm to hold the unresisting kit. The super-cold air that surrounded the wood froze his fingertips an inch from the weapon’s surface. The Nightmare King shivered, half in pain, half in something like delight.

“You should have chosen me,” he muttered, sending the Guardians a foul glare. “But now we’ll put everything to right.”

Aster lurched a step forward, but the threat of fearlings looming over his son stopped him in his tracks. Kaffir lifted his head ever so slightly, staring with those sad blue eyes that looked so much like Jack.

Then, without warning, Kaffir bit the Nightmare King with all the force his lagomorph jaw could muster.

Pitch howled in pain and instinctively flung the little poke away. The wind caught Kaffir in mid-leap, carrying him over the sand and straight into his father’s arms. The old rabbit nearly fell down with shock. It felt and sounded and smelled so much like catching Jack that his mind blew fifty years into the past.

Aster came back to himself with a gasp, dropped his weapon, and clutched his son, unable to tell whether the trembling came from him or the kit. Jack’s staff – still glowing faintly, but no longer frigid to the touch – stuck up between them as Kaffir buried his little paws into his father’s fur.

“It’s okay,” Bunny whispered, unsure of who he was trying to comfort. “It’s okay, I’ve got you. Daddy’s here.”

He heard the burst of a sword through sand and realized that the fearlings had followed, howling with their master’s rage. Sandy and North circled the two pookas on opposite sides, cutting the monsters down with whips and blades. One broke through their barrier and met with Bunny’s claws, the old pooka growling as he curled protectively over his son. Another came from behind, only to be dispatched in a blast of ice so smooth and easy that Aster couldn’t tell if it came from Kaffir or the weapon itself.

In the midst of all this, Bunny caught that scent again, the smell of winter and laughter and fun. Kaffir’s natural scent held a hint of the same, but only a hint, whereas this was pure and concentrated, like an extract.

As quickly as it came, the smell and fearlings were gone. The staff’s moonlight faded to the dimmest of glows. Pitch charged forward, his bitten hand oozing black blood, but was brought up short by North’s saber in the small of his throat.

“It’s over Pitch,” the toymaker said. “You do not have the strength to face the Guardians now.”

Despite the fearlings, the illusions, and the twisted space of the cave, Bunnymund knew that North was right. He could smell Pitch’s weakness. The Boogieman had taken over three hundred years to save up the energy for his last major bid for power. He didn’t have a fraction of that power now. He’d hedged all his bets on corrupting Kaffir. With that failure, he had no choice.

Pitch snarled and arrogantly tossed his head, but lower his arms, admitting defeat. “Fine. I suppose you’ve won again, if you want to call it that.”

He scanned each of the triumphant Guardians’ faces until his gaze settled again on Kaffir. Bunny glanced at his son to find him peering fearfull over his shoulder and right at the Nightmare King. Pitch smirked.

“Farewell, little bunny,” he said with poison sweetness. “Should you ever chane your mind, you’ll know how to find me.”

Bunnymund snarled. Guardian standards of mercy be damned, he would have ripped Pitch’s arm off right then and there if the Nightmare King didn’t choose that moment to summon the darkness with a sweep of his arms. The shadows rushed to meet him, swirling around the Guardians like a hurricane. North wrapped his arms around both pookas to keep them all together as Sandy erected a barrier of gold. The wind howled and the pressure grew and grew until…

At last, it was all gone.

The Guardians and their charge found themselves standing right outside the cave they’d entered, safe beneath the watchful eye of the moon.

* * *

The moment Pitch was confirmed gone for good, Kaffir wriggled out of his father’s arms. The sleigh remained right where they’d left it, but he didn’t rush to greet the reindeer or leap into the back as he usually would. Instead, he turned his back on them all and cuddled with the staff, which had now returned to plain wood adorned with frost.

Bunnymund glanced to his fellow Guardians, unsure of what to do. Sandy shook his head – they could offer no advice – and North motioned for Bunny to go speak with the little rabbit himself. Resigned, Aster approached his son in silence, settling behind him as quietly as he could. “Kaf…”

“Is it true?”

Bunnymund swallowed. Was what true? What had Kaffir heard in his time along with the Nightmare King?

The kit turned back to stare at him, unshed tears clinging to his eyes. He sniffled. “Pitch said it’s our fault Dammy’s dead. Is that true?”

Aster tried to speak, but failed. Kaffir said _our_ fault, not yours. That was the worst part.

At his silence, Kaffir’s sniffs turned into an all-out sob. “It is true, isn’t it?” He hiccupped and rubbed at his face, which only spread the tears across his muzzle and face. “Then it’s _all_ true. We’re the reason he’s gone and you hate me and it’s all true.”

“What? No, I –”

The sobbing kit tried to make a break for the forest. He made it three steps before Aster caught him from behind, wrapping both arms around the youngster’s waist and dragging them both to the ground. Kaffir kicked and struggled with all he had, clinging to Jack’s staff for dead life. “Let me go! Let me go, let me go!”

“Not on your life.” Bunny grunted as a kick found his stomach. “Not ever.”

He dragged the kit back and turned him, holding the kit’s face steady in his hands. “Now you listen here. I have never and could never hate you. If you’re going to blame anybody for what happened back then, you blame me. But your dam, in spite of everything, never once regretted bringing you into this world. And neither have I.”

Kaffir whimpered. His nose twitched and his whiskers trembled. Bunnymund pulled him closer and rubbed their noses together. “I love you, son. And I am so, so sorry.”

Kaffir stifled another sob. He flung his arms around his father’s neck, buried his eyes in the fury shoulder, and cried. “Dad…Daddy, I wanna go home.”

Bunnymund drew his son into a tight hug and nuzzled his head. “Home is where the heart is, kiddo. We’ll be back before you know it.”

* * *

 

“Kaffie!”

The moment the white kit stepped into the globe room, Coralberry’s cheer rang through the Pole. She tried to wiggle free of their nest, but to everyone’s surprise, Jasmine beat her to it. The silver-furred sister tackled Kaffir off his feet, sending them to the floor in a pile of fur, happy trees, and babbled apologies.

Coralberry came soon after, the three siblings piling together as they had in infancy. Toothiana and her fairies flew over to check their fellow Guardians for wounds but, finding them unhurt, descended on Kaffir to welcome him home.

Bunnymund retreated across the room to hover beside the fire, observing his children from afar. His heart warmed to see his family reunited, but all was not as it should be. Kaffir was quiet. He didn’t joke and his laughter was forced. He didn’t even try to rile up Jasmine, just nuzzled between her and Coralberry and let Toothiana fuss over his teeth.

North, having hung up his jacket and swords, came over to Bunny to offer him some eggnog. Bunny passed his glass to Sandy, too pensive to even indulge in his love of eggs. North followed the pooka’s gaze and nodded in understanding. “Your boy is unharmed, my friend. You must be thankful for that.”

“I suppose.” Aster ground his back teeth, unable to drag his eyes from the reunited kits. “Do you think he’ll ever…”

The words ‘get over it,’ caught in his throat. Abduction by the Boogieman wasn’t something that kids ‘got over.’ Even the luck ones couldn’t slip away without a little bit of change.

He swallowed and started again, his voice trembling.  “Is he going to be okay?”

Sandman swirled his eggnog in its mug and raised a finger into the air, forming a clock.

“It will take time,” North agreed. “But he possesses Jack’s spirit. He is strong and joyful. Eventually, that nature will shine through.”

In his center, Bunnymund knew that they were right. There was always hope. But still, he couldn’t shake the image of Kaffir’s sad gaze out of his mind. He lay his ears against his head and buried his eyes in his paws. “MiM, I’ve messed everything up. I should have just _told_ them. Now it’s too late.”

North patted his shoulder. “No such thing as too late, my friend. You should know. Our stories have great power, most especially those of the dead. They heal as easily as they can hurt.”

Sandy smiled and raised his glass in an encouraging toast. Bunny looked between them, then back to his children, coming to a silent conclusion: they were right.

He sighed. “I’m gonna need to borrow some paint.”

* * *

 

Bunnymund gathered his children in the old guestroom, the very one that housed them when they first came into the world. On the floor he laid out a clean canvass, a set of brushes, some water, and several pots of paint, their colors carefully chosen: snow white and ice blue, a frosty silver sheen and the soft brown of aged wood.

He gathered the kits around in a half-circle with the canvass before them and a plate of elf-made cookies to one side. They stayed quiet as he carefully cleaned his brushes and set out his paints, before taking in each of them in turn. Jasmine sat with her head held high. Coralberry pawed nervously at her long ears. And Kaffir sat at the head, cradling his dam’s staff and staring at the unmarked canvass, waiting intently for its story.

E. Aster Bunnymund took a steadying breath and lowered his first brush to the page.

“It all started with a frozen lake, on a full moon night long ago…”

Some hours later, a concerned yeti cracked open the door to find the three kits asleep in the bed with their exhausted father right alongside them. Tear-tracks stained the fur on either side of their muzzles, and the eldest pooka’s paws were covered in paint, but all seemed well, or at least on its way to becoming better.

On the floor lay the drying portrait of a young man with snow-white hair and moon-bright eyes, laughing with joy in the arms of the wind. For a brief, ridiculous moment, the yeti thought he saw that same smile reflected in the window above the bed. Then it was gone, and only the wind and snow remained to watch over the sleeping family.

Quietly, the yeti closed the door once more and crept away, leaving the father and his children to rest until the sun rose over the frozen pole and called them to begin a new day.

 

**The End**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand, that's all folks! Thank you so much for all your support. It took me longer than I thought it would to complete, but it feels good to have a full story under my belt. ^_^
> 
> If anyone's interested, I've got a lot of background information that I wrote up on each of the kits that never made it into the story. I'm thinking of putting them on my tumblr (soleminisanction) sometime in the next few days. Hopefully you'll find them at least a little interesting. And most of all, I hope that you've enjoyed the story!


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